#just...an observation

[puc-puggy]

i am increasingly convinced that the wedding industry is having a statistically significant impact on young women leaving the mormon church. has anyone looked into this?

[biggest-gaudiest-patronuses]

"you should wake up early to watch the sun rise!" is actually the dumbest possible way to guilt trip people into getting up early. hello, the sunset? exists too? every day even. and is equally gorgeous. and fits into many people's free time. you're awake, work's over and holyshit--THATSA SUNSET BABY!!!

[roukabi]

the gang's all here

[notgreengardens]

I kinda hate how the main take away in general seems to be "hahaha I love being a hater, kendrick is the king of being a hater hahaha" or "drake has a secret daughter" and not "there are misogynist sex pests and pedophiles in the hip hop industry and kendrick used his clout to very publically call out one" like can we please not drop the pedophilia out of this conversation YET AGAIN like the jokes are funny and I also make some but I feel like this should be front and center of the conversation and men in positions of power always get away with this shit

[okjii]

my favorite thing about andreil is that they spent the first two books observing each other like strange bugs in a lab going "mmm how peculiar" at each others every move only to come to the conclusion "wow this dudes 100% not all there. i should be gay about it" and then they are and its the healthiest thing you've ever seen

[mooreaux]

Mermay day 8: Big tooth river stingray

With its striking black body dotted with yellow spots, the bigtooth river stingray glides along the muddy bottoms of Brazil’s Tocantins and Araguaia river basins. Unlike many river species, its population actually increased after the construction of the Tucuruí Dam, making it a common sight in its native range and a favorite in the aquarium trade. This nocturnal, venomous ray spends its days buried in sand and emerges at dusk to hunt, leaving behind telltale circular depressions as evidence of its secretive lifestyle.

[oposssumsaucee]

Listen All Systems Red is so so funny from Gurathins perspective imagine you grew up with Space Socialism and was hired to go help some pal with science but you weren't allowed to go unless you rented AmaTeslas Torment Nexus Alexa Dot and then when you get there you find out a whole continent of people got annihilated by their Tourment Nexus rentals so you take a moment to check yours quickly and find out it already had disengaged its Don't Kill People box, the only thing you've ever been told prevented them from mass homiciding their clients, something that LITERALLY just happened to people you knew a day ago, and when you say to your fellow socialist doctors HEY I think our Tourment Nexus is fucked up and it's files said it killed dozens of people barely a year ago and we should probably get the hell away from it the same doctors are like look at what you're saying. You're hurting the Tourment Nexus' feelings. The Tourment Nexus is just a little construct who likes Netflix Gurathin stop antagonizing it on the plane ride.

[stil-lindigo]

Bisan is calling for another global strike!

I saw some posts just outlining Jan 21st, and wanted to clarify that Bisan has called for a full seven days of action.

What a global strike would look like is:

calling in sick to work

purchasing bare essentials ahead of the week so you can observe the general boycott of goods / buying as little as you genuinely can

putting in a concerted effort to elevate Palestinian voices and make it clear that this strike is in support of a permanent ceasefire!

For those who will have to purchase necessary goods during this time, please observe the brands that the BDS movement is asking us to boycott!

♢♢♢

Right now is also a good time to mention some better uses for your money during this week.

Available e-sims in Gaza are running low!!

Mirna El Helbawi and her team are working round the clock to continue to connect Palestinians as Israel does its best to cut them off from the rest of the world.

You can learn how to purchase and send e-sims here, and below you’ll find a list of what is currently needed (the areas in brackets indicate what region you should select to buy e-sims in).

--

CareforGaza is an organisation that does verifiably good work, distributing supplies directly to Palestinian families.

They have a Gofundme set up at the moment, but because of Gofundme’s poor track record regarding refusing to transfer funds to Palestinians, I’d recommend continuing to donate directly to their PayPal here.

Good luck to all of you. Don't turn away from Palestine!

[sangthael]

captain’s orders

[elodieunderglass]

changes and trends in horror-genre films are linked to the anxieties of the culture in its time and place. Vampires are the manifestation of grappling with sexuality; aliens, of foreign influence. Horror from the Cold War is about apathy and annihilation; classic Japanese horror is characterised by “nature’s revenge”; psychological horror plays with anxieties that absorbed its audience, like pregnancy/abortion, mental illness, femininity. Some horror presses on the bruise of being trapped in a situation with upsetting tasks to complete, especially ones that compromise you as a person - reflecting the horrors and anxieties of capitalism etc etc etc. Cosmic horror is slightly out of fashion because our culture is more comfortable with, even wistful for, “the unknown.” Monster horror now has to be aware of itself, as a contingent of people now live in the freedom and comfort of saying “I would willingly, gladly, even preferentially fuck that monster.” But I don’t know much about films or genres: that ground has been covered by cleverer people.

I don’t actually like horror or movies. What interests me at the moment is how horror of the 2020s has an element of perception and paying attention.

Multiple movies in one year discussed monsters that killed you if you perceived them. There are monsters you can’t look at; monsters that kill you instantly if you get their attention. Monsters where you have to be silent, look down, hold still: pray that they pass over you. M Zombies have changed from a hand-waved virus that covers extras in splashy gore, to insidious spores. A disaster film is called Don’t Look Up, a horror film is called Nope. Even trashy nun horror sets up strange premises of keeping your eyes fixed on something as the devil GETS you.

No idea if this is anything. (I haven’t seen any of these things because, unfortunately, I hate them.) Someone who understands better than me could say something clever here, and I hope they do.

But the thing I’m thinking about is what this will look like to the future, as the Victorian sex vampires and Cold War anxieties look to us. I think they’ll have a little sympathy, but they probably won’t. You poor little prey animals, the kids will say, you were awfully afraid of facing up to things, weren’t you?

[chamerionwrites]

Honestly this gets at my chiefest complaint/frustration/discomfort with fandom as a whole. Which is: in their rush to defend the artistic merit of fanworks I think a ton of people have really valorized transformation and remixing and reinterpretation in and of themselves, when imo those are all quite neutral actions. When done well, they can expand and build upon and subvert meaning in really powerful and thought-provoking (and fun!) ways. When done poorly, they are just as likely to flatten and oversimplify and decontextualize and completely erase meaning. The simple act of changing something does not imbue the choice to do so with creative validity. It is entirely possible for a cover song to be bad (or just boring!). To exactly the same degree that it is possible to transform a pretty shallow and straightforward work into something deeper and more nuanced and subversive, is possible to transform a work into a vastly shallower and less interesting shadow of itself. As with nearly everything in art, it's all about the execution!

But the second you voice this position (which should honestly be a pretty uncontroversial one imo), you get people shrieking at you about being gatekeep-y and pretentious and betraying the sacred fandom etiquette of Don't-Like-Don't-Read.

And like...listen. I was not raised in a barn. I am 150% capable of quietly back-buttoning out of a fanfic I think is bad or boring - which is exactly what I do when I encounter them - and I am obviously not advocating for stupid ships wars or any kind of harassment or leaving hatemail in people's AO3 inboxes. (Which some people will also accuse you of the second you say anything less than lavishly positive about fandom, in true piss-on-the-poor fashion.) Literally all I am saying is that you can't have your cake and eat it too - that if fandom and fanworks (in the broadest sense) have artistic merit then fandom and fanworks (in the broadest sense) are fair game for artistic critique. Which means, in practice, that I can go on my own blog and make a post exactly like this one - critiquing broad trends, or stating that some interpretations are bad actually, or pointing out that subverting or talking back to or reading against the grain of canon is very different from simply ignoring it, or saying "fandom's culture of collage/remix/fuck-canon-I-do-what-I-want can lend itself to to really creative and interesting art but also to a lot of really bland homogenized cut-n-paste art, not to mention some pretty troubling decontextualization." And that if you feel this rains on your personal parade, you are then free to DLDR by back-buttoning out of my blog and/or blocking me so you never have to see my hot takes again, rather than clamoring in my notes about how I should let people enjoy things.

[beachsideufo]

a strange internet phenomenon 2

[terracottakore]

new groundbreaking discoveries on etho's setup

[winterswake]

DOCTOR WHO — The Zygon Inversion

[morganbritton132]

Wrong Number AU where Eddie gets a new number and then starts receiving text messages from the most depressed person still alive.

At first, he ignored them.

It’s pretty obvious that this guy thinks he’s texting a dead friend or dad or someone. Eddie’s not going to take that away from someone clearly grieving, but then the texts get concerning.

He shoots a text back. After the initial ‘WHAT THE FUCK???’ and Eddie explaining the concept of companies reusing phone numbers, they talk. Eddie tells him to text him anytime he’s feeling low.

They talk almost everyday.

Eddie’s mystery texted won’t tell him his real name. He says he likes the anonymity of it and something about the government, but Eddie wishes he’d change his mind.

Sometimes Sad Boy will text him in the middle of a depression spiral and the conversation with tapper off without any good resolution. Eddie spends half the night worried to death only to receive a text the following morning like ‘ALL GOOD. FELL ASLEEP.’

He wants to respect Sad Boy’s wishes but he also wants to find him. And then he does find him, completely on accident.

He is following his newest Hellfire member into a store so he can get money off his brother. Eddie is honestly not paying much attention to who Dustin is talking to, shooting a text off to Sad Boy about strangling the youth.

He hits send and hears a ding immediately.

He looks up to find Steve Harrington pulling his phone out of his pocket. He shoots a text back and Eddie’s phone vibrates a laughing emoji.

Oh no.